Update... on a lot of things

Good people, cheer God! Right-living people sound best when praising.
Use guitars to reinforce your Hallelujahs!
Play his praise on a grand piano!
Invent your own new song to him;
give him a trumpet fanfare.

For God's Word is solid to the core;
everything he makes is sound inside and out.
He loves it when everything fits,
when his world is in plumb-line true.
Earth is drenched
in God's affectionate satisfaction. Psalm 33:1-4 (The Message)

Pastor Graves gave a wonderful and challenging sermon last Sunday night at College Church. The focus was on Isaiah 42 and on what having a new song for the Lord means. It means that the Lord has done something new and wonderful in our lives, it means that the old songs just are not good enough anymore to give God the thanks and praise that He deserves, and it means that we need new words, a new praise-song, a new song of thanksgiving that will capture all of what we feel for Him, the God who provides and sustains and gives us more than we could ever imagine.

Well, that's pretty much what I have been wanting to do for the last 5 or 6 months! It seems that every month, every week sometimes, brought a new blessing. In September I started my seminary classes at NTS, and the pace of my first semester was measured and slow enough that I was able to handle it well. The heavy lifting started this semester with the Biblical hermeneutics class I just finished as a module (these are 2-week intensive courses) and it will continue with my class on Romans and one on Theology of Church and Ministry during the regular semester. Every class that I have taken so far has been instructive and has inspired me. I have some pretty smart professors that are challenging me to study the Word in new ways and with a new passion. Most importantly, God continues to confirm to me that I am where He wants me to be.

A few months after my last post, I was also able to start a new part-time job as a Spanish interpreter at Truman Medical Center. This is PRN, or per-diem, job, so I am called when they need me, but it still provides me a little more excitement than my regular job in the call center. It is also supplementing my income just at the right moments. In my regular job I just got a raise (whoo-hoo) which will help me for what is coming in the future (which I will get to shortly). I am also working more hours now, around 25 a week, and I might increase that to 27 or 28 as things in my life continue to change...

... since Lisa and I are engaged now. I proposed during Thanksgiving, which was the first time my parents and brother had the chance to go with me to Kouts, Indiana to meet her parents and grandmother. We had been dating for 6-months at that point, and I can't explain it (I always thought I would date someone for longer than that before proposing) but the timing felt right, and it was a wonderful time to share that special day with both of our families. I proposed in front of both of our families after dinner. The only person that was not teary eyed was my brother (that was because he smiled throughout the whole thing) and they tell me (because I don't remember much of what I said because of my nervousness/excitement) that everything I said when I proposed was good. Phew! And Lisa said yes, which was the best part!

So, our wedding will be July 26th at College Church of the Nazarene in Olathe, KS. Preparations are under way, and all of you will be getting invitations in the mail sometime in the spring. I understand that, because of distance and family responsibilities, many of you won't be able to come, but we will try to send out invitations to everyone anyways.
Lisa and I ask all of you to have us in your prayers as we take this HUGE step in our lives. We continue to be amazed every day of how the Lord brought us together, and we pray always that He will be the one that leads our futures as we take on doing the work of His ministry wherever He chooses to take us.

Blessings to all of you. I think of all of you often, my first family in Christ. Had I not met you, all of you, I would not be the same person I am today.

So, sing to Yahweh a fresh new song, sing His praise to the edges of the world!
(Isaiah 42:10)

And who's that young lady there beside you?

In my last update, 4 months ago, I wrote about the way God surprises us once we give our lives over to Him. I am reminded of this as I prepare to start seminary in two weeks; but also as I prepare for a weekend trip to Kouts, Indiana to meet the parents of the greatest blessing the Lord has brought into my life yet. Joyce and Gary met her at the KC District Assembly last week, so I thought this was a good time to feature my girlfriend in my blog.

When I met Lisa Phipps in September of last year, many things about her stood out to me (besides the obvious). First, she spoke fluent Spanish, which she learned spending a year in Paraguay as a volunteer missionary for the Church of the Nazarene (this means that she paid for all of her expenses to serve in a third world country). Second, she had a desire to serve in the Hispanic Ministries of College Church. Third, she enjoyed talking and thinking about spiritual issues at a very deep level. We got to know each other and became friends as we both served in the worship team and through participating in church activities. In fact, she is one of the friends I wanted to spend time with at the February revival service that the Lord used to call me to ministry. As I got to know her better, many other things stood out about her that drew me to want to spend more time with her, especially her commitment to God and her call to ministry. A month or so after my last blog entry, we went out on our first date. The last three months have been the most wonderful, fulfilling, and blessed months of my life. Having the assurance that we are both in the center of God's will is the best part of it all.

It was wonderful to attend Jenna's wedding at St. Paul's, and I missed Christy's and will miss Amy's; however, my trip to Indiana this weekend is just to get to know her parents, nothing else yet. They think it is unfair that my parents have gotten to know Lisa so well while they've only seen pictures of me! I'm looking forward to meeting them. Lisa and I have started to pray for God's direction as to when we will take the next step. In the meantime, we will both be busy taking classes at seminary (she has already completed her first year), working, and continuing to serve in College Church with Hispanic Ministries Immanuel. God is awesome!

New directions

When God wants to tell us something, sometimes He chooses to hit us over the head with that new revelation. Burning bushes qualify, but so do timely sermons from our pastors. At other times He chooses to reveal His plans gradually, giving us hints here and there, then allowing us to piece them together at a later time. February 13th, a couple of weeks after I wrote my last blog post, I attended a revival service at College Church. To be honest, I went there in part just to spend time with friends from church. I enjoyed the message though. The evangelist preached about God's perspective, how much it differs from our own, and how we should strive to align our will to His.

That night, as I brushed my teeth and thought about the sermon, I started to see some hints that the Lord had been leaving for me. Some were not subtle at all, such as my PhD advisor at UMKC leaving for Yale, which made me apply to medical school earlier than I thought I would have to, and then not being admitted into medical school. Others were: realizing that I was spending 4 days out of the week at church; thinking about the joy I got from being involved in the music ministry at my church; finding that a passion was growing in me for teaching others about the transforming love of God. I ended up talking with my father about this that same night, and we figured out that the Lord had something other than medical school for my life.

Now, as I write this blog I am also thinking about the songs we're going to sing at the bible study tonight, about the lesson I will be giving to the teen group, and about the application for admission to the Nazarene Theological Seminary that is staring me in the face. When we give our lives to the Lord, our whole lives, He leads us in such wonderful and unexpected directions. I continue to pray for His direction because changing courses is always scary, but I know that His ways are perfect, that He will take care of me as I take this new direction in my life.

What fruit am I producing?

It's been a few months now since I've updated. Whatever free time I had before has gone away now, so I will have to work harder to make time for writting!

Today I read Matthew 21, which includes two accounts about producing fruit that touched me. In the first, Jesus finds a fig tree which has not produced fruit, only leaves, and curses it so that it withers and dies. In the second, Jesus tells a parable of a landowner who plants a vineyard and leases it to tenants. Repeated attempts to collect his produce from the tenants end in failure, so that the landowner will of course throw those tenants out and get new ones who will give him the produce he expects from his land.

Reading these passages challenged me greatly today. Although I have placed my plans for the future in the hands of the Lord, and although I believe that He will fulfill the desires of my heart, He has placed me where I am right now for a reason. If we are truly His disciples, there is no "down time", no time when we can "take it easy" from doing His will. He expects us to produce, to be fruitful wherever we are, whatever we are doing.

Now, for an update on the worship ministry at Ministerios Hispanos Emanuel. We have continued to grow and mature, both musically and spiritually. One of the wonderful things about the group that started was everyone's desire to worship, not just play music, and that has not changed. I've switched back to playing trumpet, but I get to sing once in a while when they let me. Having someone like Christian (our worship leader), who has the Lord's anointing for this kind of ministry, is a blessing. It actually won't be long until we start to sing new songs, original worship songs, which we are composing and writing thanks to him as well. Now that is being fruitful!

Restored

I have been reading the Old Testament over the last few months, and one topic that keeps coming back is restoration. The people of Israel constantly disobey God, but each time they repent the Lord restores them. Israel’s greatest kings, like David and Josiah, are not distinguished by perfection – they all failed and sinned at some point in their lives. They are called righteous because they humbled themselves before God and asked Him to restore them and then changed their ways. For my cousin Josué, restoration came in his 11^th hour, and it is only now, after more than two weeks of reflecting on those day’s events, that I can start to comprehend what a miracle God performed that day.

My cousin Josué was born with hemophilia, a disorder that prevents blood from clotting. Growing up, any small bump or scrape had the potential to be fatal. Dealing with the disease made him very mature for his age. By the age of 13 he had already committed his life to the Lord, had been baptized, and was involved in the church where my uncle pastored, teaching pre-school children about God. When he my uncle and aunt separated, Josué and my aunt moved from Peru to New York. It was sometime later, when he was in his 20’s, that they discovered he had AIDS. The plasma and blood transfusions that had kept him alive during his youth had also infected him with HIV. It was during that time that he decided he did not want to have anything to do with God.

Over the years, he started to reconnect with our extended family in Peru, and I believe that it was thanks to those encounters that the Lord started to soften his heart. When his liver and spleen started to fail a month ago, my uncle was able to visit him in New York. It was during the second visit, late at night on Sunday 22^nd of October, that my uncle was able to lead Josué back to the Lord. Six hours later he entered into a coma, and Monday morning he died and went to be with the Lord.

We as a family had been praying for restoration in his life. We wanted him to be healed of AIDS and of hemophilia, but most of all to be restored in his relationship with Christ. Both things happened, even though the first was not in the way that we as humans wanted it to happen! In his last few hours of life, through the love of my uncle, aunt, and family, and by the grace of God, he was restored. My uncle told Josué at one point that the Lord had shown him two possible outcomes for his situation. Either Josué would be completely healed and become a living testament of the power of God, or he would be speaking face to face with his Savior. Both outcomes depended on one thing though, that Josué give his life back to Christ. That is truly a miracle, that Christ’s love reached past all of the tragedies Josué experienced in this life, past the disappointment and anger he had felt towards God. Josué saw that in Jesus there was something greater, something he maybe could not understand, but something that he longed for. As I write this, he is restored, free of disease, free of the burdens of this world, and talking to God face to face. Hallelujah!

- For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. – (John 3:16)

- For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory." "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" – (1 Corinthians 15:53-55)

Free health screenings

Last Saturday I volunteered, along with the rest of my medical interpreting class, at a community health event at Bethany Community Center, which is in the middle of one of the large hispanic centers of Kansas City. At the event, free medical screenings were offered to check for glucose, cholesterol, skin cancer, and prostate cancer among other things. Our job was to be involved wherever we saw a need, but mainly to work as interpreters between the nurses/doctors volunteering and the non-english speaking patients. It was an eye opening experience.

The event was set to start at 10am, but by 9am there was already a line outside of 30+ people, and it grew until the doors were opened at 10am. Almost 100% of the people that attended were hispanic or latino, the majority brought their whole families (children, babies, uncles, grandparents) and a large percentage were probably not legal residents. During those 4 hours I carried food bags, took care of an information booth, interpreted, pointed people to where they needed to go, and spent time talking with some of the organizers. One lady from Mexico wanted to sign up for the free mammogram that could be done in a clinic around the area. However, she couldn't wait the 2 weeks that it would take because in one week she was going back to Mexico. An organizer explained to me that for many of those people, that day was going to provide the only contact with a doctor they would have for the whole year. Our teacher later told us that one of the nurses checking glucose levels came across 3 out-of-control diabetes cases in under 30mins.

The screenings offered that day were a kind of basic need no one should be deprived of. In some cases, such as for people who had cancer or diabetes and did not know about it, the results of the check-ups were a matter of life and death. Who of us would stand in line for 2 hours just to know our blood pressures or glucose levels? The people that came that day were that desperate, that much in need. Most even ignored the free bags of groceries that were being given out - they just wanted to speak with a doctor.

The bible mentions that we as Christians should be kind and show hospitality towards resident aliens and visitors. However, as far as I know, it doesn't mention illegal aliens. This is an issue that my family now confronts every day, and the only thing we can do is to help everyone that comes through the church doors as much as we can without breaking the law ourselves.

Paths...

I met someone at church last night from Honduras who's been in the US for 6 years. He came here to work, have a better life, and in the process he also became a stronger Christian. Mauricio plans to return to Honduras in December. One of my friends is preparing to go to Boston, to Harvard University for 2 months. She is also from Honduras, came to KC 5 years ago to get her PhD and has almost accomplished that goal. The Boston thing may be permanent or not, she will know after 2 months.

I just finished the book "Walking from East to West: God in the Shadows", by Ravi Zacharias. For those who have not heard of him, he is one of the world's best known and most respected Christian apologists. In the book he talks about his growing up in India, probably the world's most "spiritual" country in terms of the number of religions practiced there. Although he was the son of a powerful figure in the government, had tons of good friends, was good in sports, he found so little meaning in life that he tried to commit suicide. In the hospital, still weak from the poison he took, God talked to him through one verse, John 14:19: "Because I live, you also will live." In this verse he found the meaning he had been looking for, and he committed his life to the Lord in such a way that he traveled around India preaching, then to Canada, to Vietnam during the war, Cambodia, and now throughout the world.

Uncertainty is built into our lives, and as scientists are finding out, it is even built into the laws that govern our universe. Through these people and others, through the book, God is reminding me that it is only by trusting in Him that we can have confidence in our futures. My two friends may not know exactly where they will be in 2 months, but they have placed their trust in the Lord. Ravi Zacharias didn't know he would one day be addressing the leaders of the world at the United Nations, but he placed his trust in the Lord to lead his life, and that's where he ended up. The Lord asks us to surrender ALL our lives to Him, and then He will be able to direct our paths (Proverbs 3:6).